I'm a technical person. To quote you: "I'm not really that bothered" that someone like you doesn't believe that I am.
1. Very good attitude. I'm just a random person on the internet. If more people remembered that, the pages of Slashdot and other forums would be far more civil and pleasant. 2. However, if you're one of the people who modded that original comment up (and that is the group of people I was talking about), then we shall have to disagree about the validity of that moderation.
Why should I have to ask Microsoft for permission to create my linux distro?
You don't.
You are pretty ignorant to think that this is not important.
Without getting into the issue you've raised here, I said something quite different. I said I don't expect everyone to know the ins and outs of the secure boot technicalities.
However, if someone is going to moderate up a statement as insightful or informative, they should know what they're modding up.
I am probably someone you'd describe as a Christian conservative. I went to university in the late 80s (albeit in New Zealand) and participated in a Christian group.
We didn't go to other groups and tell them they were bad. We didn't write scathing letters to the university newspaper. We had bible studies. Anyone was welcome, and, like every other group on campus, there was a pin board with notices which gave details of where and when we met. We'd have tables at orientation, as would all the other groups, and if people stopped by we'd talk to them.
Our group was sometimes targeted by letters to the editor in the university newspaper. We had people from the on-campus atheist society come to our meetings and argue. We didn't invite them as guest speakers; they just showed up (which they were quite entitled to do). We didn't see any point in going to their meetings and creating a scene.
My anecdote compared to your anecdote, I know. Sometimes the conservative Christians are the on-campus obnoxious blighters, and sometimes the liberal atheists are the on-campus obnoxious blighters. There are some very liberal Christians in the world; sometimes they can be the on-campus obnoxious blighters, and sometimes they're really, really cool.
The most controversial episode that occurred while I was at my undergraduate school happened to be instigated by a lesbian, atheist, free-thinking student who wrote a letter that said she didn't want men to hold the door open for her and labelled it "a form of non-contact rape". Poor choice of words, obviously, and the paper got a lot of mileage publishing letters from people taking the mickey or from victims of rape angrily proclaiming that such a comparison was horrible.
Does he know you've taken his works without paying? If he doesn't, that's pretty unfair of you, isn't it.
I will refund every penny that he gave me
Can you stop being so petty? Maybe then we can have an actual discussion about the issue at hand.
...gigantic mega-corporation
So because a company takes on risk (nearly all albums lose money for the record company. Yes, really. No, not under some kind of tricky accounting. They generally really do lose actual real money), puts in all of the marketing, puts in all of the distribution, puts in all of the supply chain, you think you have a right to screw them because they have a lot more money than you approve of?
If you shoot back with "but the artist doesn't get any of the money", then I answer:
1. the artist certainly isn't any better off with you pirating it, are they? 2. it's beside the point; who gave you the right to arbitrarily decide that because you disagree with their chosen business model you get to break the law and take something for free and deliberately flaunt that business model? 2a. and don't say "they have no choice, they have to go with the evil corporation". Of course they have a choice in this day and age. Self-publish and self-distribute on their own web site, or via Amazon self-publishing, or on iTunes, or any number of other avenues. 3. I bet if you actually meant what you said then you could find their contact details and send them a check for a couple of dollars... 3a....and I also bet you never, ever will, because at the end of the day you really just want to get your stuff for free and at your convenience, regardless of whether it's illegal or anyone suffers.
All this high-and-mighty nonsense whining about evil corporations is just smoke. You just like that you can get stuff for free.
Do you want the product? If yes, then it's not a waste. If no, then downloading it for free is pointless because you don't care about it.
Alternately - have you considered the idea of showing some moral fibre and either buying something if you want it, or doing without if you don't want it and/or disagree with the principles behind the business practices?
I really struggle with this idea of entitlement that says just because you want something you can take it. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
That statement demonstrates the same sort of bone-headed mindset that's driven companies into the vendor lock-down the city of Freiburg was trying to escape from.
Why?
If something doesn't work effectively, why do you want your government using it? Interestingly enough, you make almost the same point as I'm making in this post.
This leads me to believe that we need to start making basic economics part of the educational system's core curriculum and not just an elective.
I get seriously pissed off with LibreOffice, (and with Linux for that matter).
So you're using these products not because they make you more productive but because of philosophical beliefs? Fine and dandy if you have the luxury of the time/expense to be able to do that. It doesn't work that way in business.
The only way for the Freiburgs of the world to throw off the yoke of MS oppression...
Plays well to the masses here on/., of course, but this kind of statement does come across as a little extreme to people who don't automatically see big corporations as evil and instead work on dollars and efficiency. (I know, you can come up with all kinds of examples as to why MS is more expensive. You should use those, rather than this inflammatory language.)
And no level of government has any business conducting OUR affairs using propietary data formats that can be easily held hostage.
Oh come on. Do you really think Microsoft is going to blackmail world governments, or leave them without any recourse? Not to mention the fact that there are entire cottage industries that have grown up around the concept of third party interaction with these data formats.
If you want to be taken seriously, you need to act seriously. Don't throw around stupid accusations. (At the very least, you automatically start scaring the lawyers who will see any mention of bribery as libel. Got some evidence? That'd be different.) Don't throw around shrill political angst. And don't tell governments that they positively must use a product, and in the very next breath rail about how terrible it is. That weakens your argument quite a lot.
I've got a way around this, but I don't want to post it here, lest it be targeted.
It's easy, but it costs money. I've never heard of someone getting sued using one, but that doesn't mean I'm confident enough to post my technique / service here...
I've got exactly the same technique. I call my technique "Buy the damn album/DVD instead of pirating it illegally."
Pennsylvania is insane. I moved here 12 years ago from New Zealand and even today it still amazes me that we have these silly and anachronistic laws.
PA wines and spirits shops sell from the same catalog. It means it's all the same price. (Many years ago, before I knew better, I went into a shop and asked about a case discount. The shop clerk didn't understand what I meant.)
That price, by the way, includes an 18% tax known as the Johnstown Flood Tax. (Short version: a city of 30,000 was wiped out in 1936 by a flood. 76 years later, every time you buy a bottle of wine or scotch or gin in Pennsylvania, you're still paying for Johnstown to be rebuilt.)
Recently, an amazingly innovative push in the Liquor Control Board has allowed some supermarkets to sell wine. (This is sarcasm.) They are still wine and spirits shops, so you go into a separate room and check out separately from the assistants who ring up your groceries. One wonders why they even bothered.
A wine and liquor store cannot sell beer. A beer distributor sells beer by the case. You must buy a complete case. If you go to a specialized store (e.g. a deli that is licensed), you can buy by the six-pack - but only two. My wife and I once went to a local deli to buy three six-packs. The clerk rang us up and told my wife to walk out with one six-pack, then for me to follow her five seconds later with the other two. If we walked out together with all three six-packs, we'd be breaking the law.
It's incredibly backwards. There was a case some time ago (2010? 2011?) which claimed that the law against shipping wine into PA (and for some other states) was discriminatory and the state had to treat PA wine makers & external wine makes with the same regulations. I forget what the outcome was - I think you now can order directly from the winery, but only if they've been approved by the state.
Well, there are a couple of points here where your numbers are probably off.
1. If a developer is making $100K, the client is going to be charged at least double that.
2. Several hundred developers working on a project with no other project members is going to be a recipe for chaos. This kind of magnitude of a project will have multiple project managers as well as a PMO (portfolio management office). There will need to be BPM (business process management) people involved. Risk analysts will be very important. Contract negotiators - not just to get the maximum amount of money, but to work on SLAs, penalty clauses, etc. Attorneys from here to Tanzania. Testers. QA. And on, and on, and on.
A project this size isn't just developers*. Without a very solid support organization around them, throwing developers at a massive and very complicated project like this is already dooming them.
* Hopefully, anything that takes more than a week or two to slap together is more than just developers. At a minimum, you get someone else to perform UAT on each release.
Yep, everyone says they want to be treated better. And have even lower fares. As well as full meals. And free movies. And no charge for baggage. But make it cheaper than it already is.
Do you see the problem?
HINT: If you want food service, pay more and fly first class.
1. Yeah, how dare they exercise fiduciary responsibility and actually prepare by buying generators? 2. By the way, the pics you linked to clearly show other buildings with power as well. 3. Also in one of those links (the nymag one), the spokesman says they were prepared, they were also very lucky, and oh yes, we know a lot of people aren't as lucky as us so we're going to help out in Battery Park City. Come to location XYZ for charging stations and bottled water.
Thanks for injecting some common sense. Slashdotters usually like to sneer at the masses and call it "common sense", but in this case common sense means being prepared.
The sheer extent of the storm will mean a massive impact. Emergency responders can only work as fast as they can work. The expected number of power outages will mean that linesmen just can't fix them all in a timely manner.
Philadelphia International Airport has shut down. PHL is the 12th busiest airport in the world. That's a simply huge impact considering the number of people who would ordinarily pass through the area on a given weekday, and the financial losses. It's not a decision they'd make lightly (and an airport has their own very sophisticated weather monitoring and analysis stations).
Margate, NJ, was already flooded this morning, and the storm has barely even started. It's both massive and slow moving, so it'll be hanging around for ages as it's dumping rain on us.
I think my flippancy has caused some misinterpretation.
No it hasn't. All the replies were pretty gentle, but I think you have rethought your position.
the absolute worst that will happen is my house will fall down
That's nice. Good, you're evidently confident that you aren't one of those people who hang around until it's too late, thinking "nah, it'll never happen to me". You're also apparently not house bound, physically disabled or living with people who are physically disabled, mentally disabled or living with people who are mentally disabled, suffering from a debilitating illness, suffering from a weakened immune system, reliant on drugs (to treat high blood pressure or asthma or some other serious and dangerous condition) which you need to take with you if you have to leave home in a hurry because it is about to fall down, or living in a row house, and you don't have elderly parents or young children living with you. Elderly parents can slow down your exit. Young children (even older children) can panic. So can adults.
Lucky for you, you won't be one of those people who hangs around, and nobody in your household will have a broken leg or twist their ankle or break their arm or have any kind of other accident. And if the worst does happen, it won't be in the middle of the night when people are groggy and it's pitch black and you are trying desperately to find your way out without tripping over something and cracking your head open.
The media warnings are for all those people who aren't quite as clever/lucky as you.
If we lose power, we lose power. The world won't end
That's nice. No, the world won't end. You're evidently not reliant on an electrical device to keep you healthy, like a breathing machine.
The media warnings are for all those people who aren't in so fortunate a position.
I have plenty of dry food and enough water packed in my freezer that it'll be a couple-few days before it's a problem
That's nice. You make enough money that you have no problems buying extra food beyond your daily or weekly requirements, unlike many inner city inhabitants for whom such preparedness is financially impossible.
The media warnings are for all those people who aren't as well off as you, or who buy lots of tins to prepare for loss of power and don't consider how they're going to cook that tinned food.
In situations where power is out for several days, people panic. High winds cause windows to break and people get seriously cut up. Then they can't get treatment because the roads are impassable.
Or people find themselves in some kind of emergency, take their life in their hands and go out in their car, and get swept away by incredibly swollen streams.
It's nice you're so prepared, well off, and aware of all the things one needs to take into account. There is a lot to think about when you're facing this kind of potential damage. Lots of people just don't know all the things they have to do - they're not accustomed to it if they don't live in a hurricane-prone area, or if they've just moved to such an area and never had to consider it before.
The other side is that time and time again people just don't realize how dangerous high winds and swollen rivers can be. They have a massive Excursion or Yukon SUV and think they're invincible. Then they get swept away. It always happens. Always. Regardless of the warnings on tv, regardless of the newscasters telling people to, seriously, stay inside and don't try to ford a stream because you freaking well can't make it. People still do it. The news channels are trying to capture viewers, sure - that's their job - but they're also well aware that people panic or don't take it seriously, and are trying to save lives.
I'm not sure where the story title "How To Avoid Working With Awful Legacy Code" came from, but it already sounds bad. Let's go on.
I have worked for about a decade as a software engineer.
So you've got enough miles under your belt to know more or less what you're doing, without being amazing. Ten years isn't very long for a discipline like programming, unless you do very basic stuff and never have to worry about optimization, for instance.
Some legacy code has been good. Most of it is bad.
Yeah? Really? See my comment above. By the way, the guy who comes after you probably says the same thing about most of your code. He's probably at least half right, too.
my work satisfaction tends to be proportionate to quality of the legacy code I have to work with
Perhaps I'm being unfair, but you do come across as a bit of a prima donna. And again, if you've only been doing this for ten years, then you probably aren't justified in being so snotty.
My work satisfaction tends to be proportionate to how much I get paid and how nice the other people are. If it was a party and fun all the time, it wouldn't be called "work". Yes, I enjoy my job. Yes, I know people will doubtless respond with "life is too short to work at a job you hate". But getting paid a small fortune can make a job an awful lot more fun. Look, I've worked for complete jerks, and sometimes you just have to walk away. I've done it. And then, sometimes, you just have to suck it up and be a grown-up.
If you can afford to turn your nose up at work that doesn't meet some random enjoyment factor criterion, then you're in a very fortunate position, and I hope you are grateful for how lucky you are. If you are in that kind of position, then you probably don't really need to be asking this question. Pick and choose as you want.
And if the code is really that bad, look at it as a challenge to your abilities, gleefully rub your hands together as you contemplate an extended contract and some security, and put together a spreadsheet to show how much money you're about to rake in. You never know, it might work and make the job a little bit more appealing, even if the code quality isn't up to your superior standards.
Are recent technologies used? Are there code review processes? Is TDD practiced? Even so, I still encounter terrible quality code.
That's because there are a lot of mediocre coders, just like there are a lot of mediocre sys admins or plumbers or chefs. Putting formality around someone doesn't make him a better coder.
Does Slashdot have any advice for other questions to ask?
How much does the job pay? How long is the job? Is it time and materials, or fixed price? What if the contract takes significantly longer than expected? Will you give me a recommendation if I do a really good job?
What are you trying to get out of this question? Presumably you are going to add the factors together to determine if the legacy code is "good" or "bad". Then what? If it's kind of half-baked, in your estimation, you're going to turn down the gig? That's probably going to annoy the contracting company if you keep doing it. "What didn't you like about this job offer? The hourly rate was good, it was a short drive, it met these other criteria...". "Yeah, but the code wasn't up to my standards. Now, kindly hand me another glass of champagne and do try a bit harder next time, peon."
Whereas a coal plant can dump megatonnes of CO2 and sulphur into the air and just collect the money from selling power, leaving the rest of us to pay the cost for the next centuries.
Except that they no longer can get away with this. EPA regulations requiring retrofits were going to make it so prohibitively expensive that coal plants planned to retire in droves. Then that regulation got knocked back, but the coal plants are still closing because of other regulations around mercury, etc.
If you're talking about a test taken prior to December 1, 1998, perhaps. The cutoff was raised to try and avoid this exact problem (2000 ng/ml for typical workplace tests, 3000 ng/ml for the US Military).
If Slashdot had been around 120 or 130 years ago, the first story about a new invention with four wheels and a motor would've been rife with comments about pedestrians not being able to get out of the way, horses being frightened, and predictions of other problems so severe the automobile would never see the light of day as an invention for the common man.
That this got modded to +4 Interesting says all one needs to know about Slashdot's readership in late 2012.
1. Ever heard of emergency changes? 1. (a) Ever heard of "we know we have this event specifically designed to elicit bug reports, so hey, let's put in a special procedure to integrate fixes ASAP, 'cause then we'll look all cool and stuff"? 2. Ever heard of regression testing? (That's okay, judging by Google's perpetual beta status for everything, they haven't either.)
Slashdot Mirror
Link to your own directory first in your search path.
Where's my check?
You'll get it when you fix the other part of the question:
...without breaking the other applications that depend on them
That's the key point your technique misses.
Next...
I'm a technical person. To quote you: "I'm not really that bothered" that someone like you doesn't believe that I am.
1. Very good attitude. I'm just a random person on the internet. If more people remembered that, the pages of Slashdot and other forums would be far more civil and pleasant.
2. However, if you're one of the people who modded that original comment up (and that is the group of people I was talking about), then we shall have to disagree about the validity of that moderation.
Why should I have to ask Microsoft for permission to create my linux distro?
You don't.
You are pretty ignorant to think that this is not important.
Without getting into the issue you've raised here, I said something quite different. I said I don't expect everyone to know the ins and outs of the secure boot technicalities.
However, if someone is going to moderate up a statement as insightful or informative, they should know what they're modding up.
We have to ask Microsoft for permission now before they give us a key that lets us install Linux on our own machines?
I count three incorrect assumptions in this one statement.
Short answer: no, and see the other answers as to why it's no.
Long answer: no, and I'm not really that bothered that someone doesn't know this. What does bother me is that this got modded up to +5 Insightful.
Remember the days when Slashdot used to have technical people hovering around these pages?
I am probably someone you'd describe as a Christian conservative. I went to university in the late 80s (albeit in New Zealand) and participated in a Christian group.
We didn't go to other groups and tell them they were bad. We didn't write scathing letters to the university newspaper. We had bible studies. Anyone was welcome, and, like every other group on campus, there was a pin board with notices which gave details of where and when we met. We'd have tables at orientation, as would all the other groups, and if people stopped by we'd talk to them.
Our group was sometimes targeted by letters to the editor in the university newspaper. We had people from the on-campus atheist society come to our meetings and argue. We didn't invite them as guest speakers; they just showed up (which they were quite entitled to do). We didn't see any point in going to their meetings and creating a scene.
My anecdote compared to your anecdote, I know. Sometimes the conservative Christians are the on-campus obnoxious blighters, and sometimes the liberal atheists are the on-campus obnoxious blighters. There are some very liberal Christians in the world; sometimes they can be the on-campus obnoxious blighters, and sometimes they're really, really cool.
The most controversial episode that occurred while I was at my undergraduate school happened to be instigated by a lesbian, atheist, free-thinking student who wrote a letter that said she didn't want men to hold the door open for her and labelled it "a form of non-contact rape". Poor choice of words, obviously, and the paper got a lot of mileage publishing letters from people taking the mickey or from victims of rape angrily proclaiming that such a comparison was horrible.
You're being deliberately obtuse and you know it.
All he has to do is ask
Does he know you've taken his works without paying? If he doesn't, that's pretty unfair of you, isn't it.
I will refund every penny that he gave me
Can you stop being so petty? Maybe then we can have an actual discussion about the issue at hand.
...gigantic mega-corporation
So because a company takes on risk (nearly all albums lose money for the record company. Yes, really. No, not under some kind of tricky accounting. They generally really do lose actual real money), puts in all of the marketing, puts in all of the distribution, puts in all of the supply chain, you think you have a right to screw them because they have a lot more money than you approve of?
If you shoot back with "but the artist doesn't get any of the money", then I answer:
1. the artist certainly isn't any better off with you pirating it, are they? ...and I also bet you never, ever will, because at the end of the day you really just want to get your stuff for free and at your convenience, regardless of whether it's illegal or anyone suffers.
2. it's beside the point; who gave you the right to arbitrarily decide that because you disagree with their chosen business model you get to break the law and take something for free and deliberately flaunt that business model?
2a. and don't say "they have no choice, they have to go with the evil corporation". Of course they have a choice in this day and age. Self-publish and self-distribute on their own web site, or via Amazon self-publishing, or on iTunes, or any number of other avenues.
3. I bet if you actually meant what you said then you could find their contact details and send them a check for a couple of dollars...
3a.
All this high-and-mighty nonsense whining about evil corporations is just smoke. You just like that you can get stuff for free.
Do you want the product? If yes, then it's not a waste. If no, then downloading it for free is pointless because you don't care about it.
Alternately - have you considered the idea of showing some moral fibre and either buying something if you want it, or doing without if you don't want it and/or disagree with the principles behind the business practices?
I really struggle with this idea of entitlement that says just because you want something you can take it. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
It doesn't work that way in business.
That statement demonstrates the same sort of bone-headed mindset that's driven companies into the vendor lock-down the city of Freiburg was trying to escape from.
Why?
If something doesn't work effectively, why do you want your government using it? Interestingly enough, you make almost the same point as I'm making in this post.
This leads me to believe that we need to start making basic economics part of the educational system's core curriculum and not just an elective.
You have a point.
I get seriously pissed off with LibreOffice, (and with Linux for that matter).
So you're using these products not because they make you more productive but because of philosophical beliefs? Fine and dandy if you have the luxury of the time/expense to be able to do that. It doesn't work that way in business.
The only way for the Freiburgs of the world to throw off the yoke of MS oppression...
Plays well to the masses here on /., of course, but this kind of statement does come across as a little extreme to people who don't automatically see big corporations as evil and instead work on dollars and efficiency. (I know, you can come up with all kinds of examples as to why MS is more expensive. You should use those, rather than this inflammatory language.)
And no level of government has any business conducting OUR affairs using propietary data formats that can be easily held hostage.
Oh come on. Do you really think Microsoft is going to blackmail world governments, or leave them without any recourse? Not to mention the fact that there are entire cottage industries that have grown up around the concept of third party interaction with these data formats.
If you want to be taken seriously, you need to act seriously. Don't throw around stupid accusations. (At the very least, you automatically start scaring the lawyers who will see any mention of bribery as libel. Got some evidence? That'd be different.) Don't throw around shrill political angst. And don't tell governments that they positively must use a product, and in the very next breath rail about how terrible it is. That weakens your argument quite a lot.
Nice little rant.
It's convenient that the artists whose works you are pirating can't demand a refund from you, isn't it.
I've got a way around this, but I don't want to post it here, lest it be targeted.
It's easy, but it costs money. I've never heard of someone getting sued using one, but that doesn't mean I'm confident enough to post my technique / service here...
I've got exactly the same technique. I call my technique "Buy the damn album/DVD instead of pirating it illegally."
You're welcome.
I can't see how this is legal?
Oh the irony, in a discussion about Verizon targeting users who are illegally pirating stuff...
Pennsylvania is insane. I moved here 12 years ago from New Zealand and even today it still amazes me that we have these silly and anachronistic laws.
PA wines and spirits shops sell from the same catalog. It means it's all the same price. (Many years ago, before I knew better, I went into a shop and asked about a case discount. The shop clerk didn't understand what I meant.)
That price, by the way, includes an 18% tax known as the Johnstown Flood Tax. (Short version: a city of 30,000 was wiped out in 1936 by a flood. 76 years later, every time you buy a bottle of wine or scotch or gin in Pennsylvania, you're still paying for Johnstown to be rebuilt.)
Recently, an amazingly innovative push in the Liquor Control Board has allowed some supermarkets to sell wine. (This is sarcasm.) They are still wine and spirits shops, so you go into a separate room and check out separately from the assistants who ring up your groceries. One wonders why they even bothered.
A wine and liquor store cannot sell beer. A beer distributor sells beer by the case. You must buy a complete case. If you go to a specialized store (e.g. a deli that is licensed), you can buy by the six-pack - but only two. My wife and I once went to a local deli to buy three six-packs. The clerk rang us up and told my wife to walk out with one six-pack, then for me to follow her five seconds later with the other two. If we walked out together with all three six-packs, we'd be breaking the law.
It's incredibly backwards. There was a case some time ago (2010? 2011?) which claimed that the law against shipping wine into PA (and for some other states) was discriminatory and the state had to treat PA wine makers & external wine makes with the same regulations. I forget what the outcome was - I think you now can order directly from the winery, but only if they've been approved by the state.
Well, there are a couple of points here where your numbers are probably off.
1. If a developer is making $100K, the client is going to be charged at least double that.
2. Several hundred developers working on a project with no other project members is going to be a recipe for chaos. This kind of magnitude of a project will have multiple project managers as well as a PMO (portfolio management office). There will need to be BPM (business process management) people involved. Risk analysts will be very important. Contract negotiators - not just to get the maximum amount of money, but to work on SLAs, penalty clauses, etc. Attorneys from here to Tanzania. Testers. QA. And on, and on, and on.
A project this size isn't just developers*. Without a very solid support organization around them, throwing developers at a massive and very complicated project like this is already dooming them.
* Hopefully, anything that takes more than a week or two to slap together is more than just developers. At a minimum, you get someone else to perform UAT on each release.
Like Linux users.
Or KDE advocates.
Or FOSS advocates.
Yep, everyone says they want to be treated better. And have even lower fares. As well as full meals. And free movies. And no charge for baggage. But make it cheaper than it already is.
Do you see the problem?
HINT: If you want food service, pay more and fly first class.
I have seen every Buccaneers game for the last 10 years
Loser.
1. Yeah, how dare they exercise fiduciary responsibility and actually prepare by buying generators?
2. By the way, the pics you linked to clearly show other buildings with power as well.
3. Also in one of those links (the nymag one), the spokesman says they were prepared, they were also very lucky, and oh yes, we know a lot of people aren't as lucky as us so we're going to help out in Battery Park City. Come to location XYZ for charging stations and bottled water.
Stupid, dumb, cheap shot. Come on, add something to the discussion, rather than acting like a 12 year old geek who thinks he's being clever.
Thanks for injecting some common sense. Slashdotters usually like to sneer at the masses and call it "common sense", but in this case common sense means being prepared.
The sheer extent of the storm will mean a massive impact. Emergency responders can only work as fast as they can work. The expected number of power outages will mean that linesmen just can't fix them all in a timely manner.
Philadelphia International Airport has shut down. PHL is the 12th busiest airport in the world. That's a simply huge impact considering the number of people who would ordinarily pass through the area on a given weekday, and the financial losses. It's not a decision they'd make lightly (and an airport has their own very sophisticated weather monitoring and analysis stations).
Margate, NJ, was already flooded this morning, and the storm has barely even started. It's both massive and slow moving, so it'll be hanging around for ages as it's dumping rain on us.
Here's Red Hook, Brooklyn, and that's just the beginning.
Here's more, courtesy of NY Times. They've opened their paywall. Scroll down and have a look at the pictures and remember it's barely started yet.
I think my flippancy has caused some misinterpretation.
No it hasn't. All the replies were pretty gentle, but I think you have rethought your position.
the absolute worst that will happen is my house will fall down
That's nice. Good, you're evidently confident that you aren't one of those people who hang around until it's too late, thinking "nah, it'll never happen to me". You're also apparently not house bound, physically disabled or living with people who are physically disabled, mentally disabled or living with people who are mentally disabled, suffering from a debilitating illness, suffering from a weakened immune system, reliant on drugs (to treat high blood pressure or asthma or some other serious and dangerous condition) which you need to take with you if you have to leave home in a hurry because it is about to fall down, or living in a row house, and you don't have elderly parents or young children living with you. Elderly parents can slow down your exit. Young children (even older children) can panic. So can adults.
Lucky for you, you won't be one of those people who hangs around, and nobody in your household will have a broken leg or twist their ankle or break their arm or have any kind of other accident. And if the worst does happen, it won't be in the middle of the night when people are groggy and it's pitch black and you are trying desperately to find your way out without tripping over something and cracking your head open.
The media warnings are for all those people who aren't quite as clever/lucky as you.
If we lose power, we lose power. The world won't end
That's nice. No, the world won't end. You're evidently not reliant on an electrical device to keep you healthy, like a breathing machine.
The media warnings are for all those people who aren't in so fortunate a position.
I have plenty of dry food and enough water packed in my freezer that it'll be a couple-few days before it's a problem
That's nice. You make enough money that you have no problems buying extra food beyond your daily or weekly requirements, unlike many inner city inhabitants for whom such preparedness is financially impossible.
The media warnings are for all those people who aren't as well off as you, or who buy lots of tins to prepare for loss of power and don't consider how they're going to cook that tinned food.
In situations where power is out for several days, people panic. High winds cause windows to break and people get seriously cut up. Then they can't get treatment because the roads are impassable.
Or people find themselves in some kind of emergency, take their life in their hands and go out in their car, and get swept away by incredibly swollen streams.
It's nice you're so prepared, well off, and aware of all the things one needs to take into account. There is a lot to think about when you're facing this kind of potential damage. Lots of people just don't know all the things they have to do - they're not accustomed to it if they don't live in a hurricane-prone area, or if they've just moved to such an area and never had to consider it before.
The other side is that time and time again people just don't realize how dangerous high winds and swollen rivers can be. They have a massive Excursion or Yukon SUV and think they're invincible. Then they get swept away. It always happens. Always. Regardless of the warnings on tv, regardless of the newscasters telling people to, seriously, stay inside and don't try to ford a stream because you freaking well can't make it. People still do it. The news channels are trying to capture viewers, sure - that's their job - but they're also well aware that people panic or don't take it seriously, and are trying to save lives.
So stop being so superior.
I'm not sure where the story title "How To Avoid Working With Awful Legacy Code" came from, but it already sounds bad. Let's go on.
I have worked for about a decade as a software engineer.
So you've got enough miles under your belt to know more or less what you're doing, without being amazing. Ten years isn't very long for a discipline like programming, unless you do very basic stuff and never have to worry about optimization, for instance.
Some legacy code has been good. Most of it is bad.
Yeah? Really? See my comment above. By the way, the guy who comes after you probably says the same thing about most of your code. He's probably at least half right, too.
my work satisfaction tends to be proportionate to quality of the legacy code I have to work with
Perhaps I'm being unfair, but you do come across as a bit of a prima donna. And again, if you've only been doing this for ten years, then you probably aren't justified in being so snotty.
My work satisfaction tends to be proportionate to how much I get paid and how nice the other people are. If it was a party and fun all the time, it wouldn't be called "work". Yes, I enjoy my job. Yes, I know people will doubtless respond with "life is too short to work at a job you hate". But getting paid a small fortune can make a job an awful lot more fun. Look, I've worked for complete jerks, and sometimes you just have to walk away. I've done it. And then, sometimes, you just have to suck it up and be a grown-up.
If you can afford to turn your nose up at work that doesn't meet some random enjoyment factor criterion, then you're in a very fortunate position, and I hope you are grateful for how lucky you are. If you are in that kind of position, then you probably don't really need to be asking this question. Pick and choose as you want.
And if the code is really that bad, look at it as a challenge to your abilities, gleefully rub your hands together as you contemplate an extended contract and some security, and put together a spreadsheet to show how much money you're about to rake in. You never know, it might work and make the job a little bit more appealing, even if the code quality isn't up to your superior standards.
Are recent technologies used? Are there code review processes? Is TDD practiced? Even so, I still encounter terrible quality code.
That's because there are a lot of mediocre coders, just like there are a lot of mediocre sys admins or plumbers or chefs. Putting formality around someone doesn't make him a better coder.
Does Slashdot have any advice for other questions to ask?
How much does the job pay?
How long is the job?
Is it time and materials, or fixed price?
What if the contract takes significantly longer than expected?
Will you give me a recommendation if I do a really good job?
What are you trying to get out of this question? Presumably you are going to add the factors together to determine if the legacy code is "good" or "bad". Then what? If it's kind of half-baked, in your estimation, you're going to turn down the gig? That's probably going to annoy the contracting company if you keep doing it. "What didn't you like about this job offer? The hourly rate was good, it was a short drive, it met these other criteria...". "Yeah, but the code wasn't up to my standards. Now, kindly hand me another glass of champagne and do try a bit harder next time, peon."
Good luck with that.
Whereas a coal plant can dump megatonnes of CO2 and sulphur into the air and just collect the money from selling power, leaving the rest of us to pay the cost for the next centuries.
Except that they no longer can get away with this. EPA regulations requiring retrofits were going to make it so prohibitively expensive that coal plants planned to retire in droves. Then that regulation got knocked back, but the coal plants are still closing because of other regulations around mercury, etc.
If you're talking about a test taken prior to December 1, 1998, perhaps. The cutoff was raised to try and avoid this exact problem (2000 ng/ml for typical workplace tests, 3000 ng/ml for the US Military).
If Slashdot had been around 120 or 130 years ago, the first story about a new invention with four wheels and a motor would've been rife with comments about pedestrians not being able to get out of the way, horses being frightened, and predictions of other problems so severe the automobile would never see the light of day as an invention for the common man.
That this got modded to +4 Interesting says all one needs to know about Slashdot's readership in late 2012.
1. Ever heard of emergency changes?
1. (a) Ever heard of "we know we have this event specifically designed to elicit bug reports, so hey, let's put in a special procedure to integrate fixes ASAP, 'cause then we'll look all cool and stuff"?
2. Ever heard of regression testing? (That's okay, judging by Google's perpetual beta status for everything, they haven't either.)